Death on a Galician Shore (38 page)

‘Read this,’ he said. ‘Justo Castelo wasn’t wearing yellow waterproofs when his body was found. They were navy blue.’

‘That’s right,’ said Barcia. ‘Very lightweight ones.’

Caldas took a couple of drags of his cigarette before dialling the number of the Refugio del Pescador. Over the loudspeaker, the waiter’s voice rose above the din of the television and customers.

‘Hello, it’s Inspector Caldas. We spoke last week.’

‘Good afternoon, Inspector.’

‘I wanted to check something with you. Do you remember the last time you saw El Rubio? He was there in the bar and you thought he seemed worried.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Do you remember what he was wearing?’

‘No.’

‘Was he wearing waterproofs?’

‘No, I’m sure he wasn’t. It was a Saturday, Inspector. The fishermen don’t work on a Saturday night. They never come to the bar in their rain gear.’

‘Even if it’s raining?’

‘Even if it’s pouring, Inspector. They might wear rubber boots, but the waterproofs are for work only.’ He paused for a moment before adding, ‘El Rubio was wearing a black or navy cagoule.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No,’ admitted the waiter, ‘but it’s what he usually wore.’

When he hung up, Caldas saw that Barrio, Estevez and Barcia were all staring at him expectantly.

‘It wasn’t Castelo,’ he said, cigarette dangling from his lips.

‘Who?’ asked Estevez.

‘The man on the boat. The one the old woman saw. It wasn’t Justo Castelo. It was him,’ he said, pointing at the screen at the man hiding beneath his hood.

‘What about Castelo then?’

‘He was at the Refugio del Pescador on Saturday evening, chatting to the waiter at the bar. He had a bit more to drink than usual and left, saying he was going to end it. He was determined to settle a situation that had been disturbing him for weeks. It didn’t work. I think that on Sunday morning, when his fishing boat left the harbour, Justo Castelo was already floating in the sea with his head gashed open and hands bound with a green cable tie.’

Caldas looked at the pathologist. ‘Could he have been in the water since Saturday night?’

‘As I said, a day or two. I can’t be any more accurate when it comes to the sea.’

Caldas nodded. ‘In that case it’s clear.’

Estevez was still mystified. ‘What’s clear?’

‘Don’t you see?’

All three looked blank.

‘Castelo was killed on Saturday night. He was struck on the head, tied up to make it look like suicide and thrown into the sea,’ said Caldas. ‘To complete the deception, the killer had to make sure the boat wasn’t moored to the buoy at daybreak. He had to get it out of the harbour so that everyone would think that, like many before him, El Rubio had decided to go fishing for the last time. To set sail and jump into the sea. Do you follow now?’

They did.

‘The man who murdered him had been biding his time for months. He knew what he had to do. Before heaving Castelo over the side, he took the float with the keys to his fishing boat and to the padlock for his rowing boat. The next day was a Sunday. A Sunday in winter. The streets would be deserted, the harbour empty. Castelo’s killer drove his car to the natural harbour by the lighthouse at Punta Lameda. There he’d be able to get rid of the boat and come ashore without being seen. He could sink the boat in the pool where it would remain until the following summer, when El Rubio’s death would have been forgotten.’

He paused to draw on his cigarette before continuing.

‘He left his car there and, in the dark and wearing waterproofs like the dead man’s, he walked to Panxón. When he got to the quayside, he dragged Castelo’s rowing boat into the water, rowed out to his fishing boat and then headed as fast as possible for the lighthouse. There he came ashore, scuttled the boat in the pool, got into his car and left the scene.’

Estevez was amazed.

‘So it was only one man.’

‘Yes, just one.’

Diego Neira had acted alone, and had turned out to be more of a cold-blooded killer than Caldas had hoped.

‘I thought it was strange someone knowing El Rubio was going to set sail on a Sunday,’ Estevez murmured.

Caldas agreed.

‘What about the good luck charms – were they part of the set-up too?’ asked the pathologist.

The inspector shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But knowing how superstitious fishermen are …’

They were silent for a moment, then Dr Barrio pointed at the screen and said, ‘So that’s the man who killed him.’

‘I think so.’

‘Do you have any idea who he is?’

‘His name’s Diego Neira.’

‘Who’s he?’ asked the pathologist.

Caldas stood up. ‘You explain it to him, will you?’ he asked Estevez. ‘I’m going to get rid of this cigarette butt in the toilets.’

It was dark by the time they left the Forensics offices. Estevez drove the inspector to City Hall so that he could pass on the callers’ complaints to the City Police.

‘So he didn’t tie him up just to make him talk,’ Estevez remarked.

‘No,’ Caldas murmured, not opening his eyes. ‘He didn’t settle for simply scaring him into talking. It’s not what I thought.’

‘Do you think Castelo told Neira the name of his mother’s killer?’

‘Quite likely.’

‘Then he’ll kill again.’

‘If he can, yes,’ the inspector mumbled.

Estevez pulled up outside City Hall. Caldas thanked him for the lift and got out.

‘Do you want me to wait?’

‘No need, Rafa. I’ll walk back.’

As his assistant drove off, Caldas tore a page from his black notebook and went in to hand it to the duty officer.

Instead of heading straight back to the Puerta del Sol, Caldas walked from City Hall to the Falperra fountain and then down the Calle Romil. He looked up at the sky. A strong wind had blown all afternoon, pushing the clouds inland. Nothing remained of the cold of previous nights.

As he reached the Paseo de Alfonso XII, a huge, almost full moon appeared above the estuary and, across the still water, the Morrazo peninsula and Cies Islands were silhouetted.

As he walked, Caldas thought of Justo Castelo, of his sister Alicia, of Rebeca and Diego Neira. He’d solved the mystery of the fisherman’s death, though they still hadn’t caught Neira. Caldas was never interested in the culprits. To him, the main thing was knowing the motives, the reasons. Yet, on discovering the truth, he hadn’t felt the relief of other occasions. This time it all seemed clouded with bitterness.

At the Puerta del Sol the scales of the merman’s tail gleamed in the moonlight. Caldas continued along the Calle del Principe, almost immediately turning right into the Travesia de la Aurora.

It was almost eight when he pushed open the wooden door of the Eligio.

‘Good evening, Leo,’ chorused the academics as he entered.

Caldas went up to the bar and Carlos greeted him with a glass of white wine. Soon the academics were talking about seagulls nesting on roofs throughout the city. A little later, someone at the back started whistling ‘Promenade’.

Caldas turned round. Could it be that his mere presence now triggered a Pavlovian response in people so that, upon seeing him, some began discussing the show and others hummed the Gershwin tune?

Carlos brought him a second glass of wine and a plate of steamed cockles.

‘How’s your father doing?’ he asked.

Caldas suddenly remembered that his uncle was being discharged any day. He took his mobile from his pocket and, chewing his first cockle, went out into the street in search of better reception.

‘Leo, well, well!’ said his father on answering the phone.

‘When’s Uncle Alberto being let out?’

‘Tomorrow afternoon at five. Can you be there? To help me get him into the car mainly.’

‘Of course,’ said Caldas. ‘How is he?’

‘Dying to be here.’

‘Do you think you’ll be OK with him?’

‘Well, at least here he’ll get proper food and fresh air.’

‘True.’

‘And wine.’

‘Is he allowed to drink?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think he feels like it.’

‘Little by little,’ said Caldas.

‘That’s right – little by little.’

The inspector promised to be at the hospital at five and went back to his plate of cockles.

In the morning the inspector shaved in the shower, had breakfast in a bar reading the paper and walked to the police station. It was a beautiful day. Clear, without a single cloud. Another cruise liner was entering the port. The tourists would be able to leave their raincoats behind.

‘Has Quintans called from Ferrol?’ he asked Olga as he arrived.

‘This morning?’

‘Or yesterday.’

‘Not this morning. I left you a couple of messages yesterday.’

Among the piles of papers, he found two little yellow Post-it notes stuck to his desk, but neither bore the name he was looking for. Sinking into his black chair, he picked up the phone and called the station in Ferrol.

‘Hi, it’s Leo,’ he said when he got through to Quintans.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t called back,’ said Quintans. ‘But that man you’re after is as slippery as an eel.’

‘You can’t find him?’ asked Caldas, already knowing the answer.

‘No way. He lived in Neda until six years ago, but you already knew that.’

‘What about friends, girlfriends, jobs?’

‘Nothing. Diego Neira’s like a ghost. He’s got no remaining family and the few people who knew him can’t give a precise description. They remember him as an ordinary guy. You know – medium height, medium build, brownish hair …. And definitely a bit of a loner.’

‘Any photos?’

‘None,’ said Quintans. ‘And he never went to school in the village.
At least the secondary school has no record of his ever enrolling there.’

‘Damn.’

‘Give me a few more hours. I’ll try to have something for you this afternoon or tomorrow.’

Afterwards he called Barcia to ask if they’d identified the 4x4 on the security camera recording.

‘It’s a fairly old model Land Rover. It could be white, beige, sky-blue, yellow – any light colour.’

‘We may as well check if there’s a car in Panxón like it, just in case.’

Barcia had already thought of this. ‘There are two,’ she said. ‘And another six in nearby areas. I was going to ask the local police to see if any of them has a broken aerial and scratched paintwork.’

‘We were thinking of passing by there late morning,’ said Caldas. ‘If you send the list of addresses we can check out the cars ourselves.’

‘OK, Inspector. Shall I send it straight to you?’

‘Better send it to Olga.’

He was about to hang up when he remembered something that had occurred to him in a wakeful moment during the night.

‘Something else, Clara. Around the lighthouse at Punta Lameda there were tyre tracks. Ferro photographed them. I think it would be a good idea to check if any belong to a 4x4 like the one we’re looking for.’

‘Will do, Inspector.’

‘One last thing. Neira was living in Neda, near Ferrol, until a few years ago. It would be good to know how many Land Rovers like that there are there.’

Caldas put the phone down and surveyed his desk. Piles of papers stood like a barricade before him. He glanced at his watch. Estevez wouldn’t arrive until eleven. Taking a deep breath as if about to dive into a swimming pool, he reached for a document.

By the time his assistant appeared in his doorway an hour later, many of the documents were crammed into Caldas’s wastepaper basket. Others had simply moved, becoming the foundations upon which new piles would soon rise.

‘Are we going?’ asked Estevez.

‘Yes,’ said the inspector with a sigh of relief.

The flags of the boats in the fishing port were fluttering in the breeze. Beyond, in Bouzas, the frames of ships under construction gleamed in the autumn sunshine.

They took the ring road and then the road laid on an old tramline that led to Panxón. Monteferro was no longer a dark shape in the mist, but a green forest rising above the blue sea.

As they drove, Caldas showed Estevez the list of owners of 4x4s similar to the one they’d seen on the security camera recording.

‘Let’s see if there’s a light-coloured one.’

‘Do you think he’ll be in Panxón?’

‘No,’ said Caldas. ‘But we may as well check.’

‘I bet Neira’s gone after Arias to Scotland.’

‘We don’t know for sure that Arias is there.’

‘Makes no difference. Diego Neira will be on that fisherman’s trail like a bloodhound. There’s nothing like running away to make someone chase you.’

There were two Land Rovers of the model they were looking for in Panxón. They drove to the first address but didn’t even need to get out of the car to rule that one out: it was parked outside, and it was dark green, dirty and rather dilapidated.

The second 4x4 on the list belonged to a retired fisherman, who’d bought it second-hand several years earlier. He kept it safely in his garage. He showed it to them. It was white but completely unscratched and the aerial was intact.

‘Now what?’ asked Estevez as they were leaving.

‘There are six more in the area. Why don’t you drop me off at the harbour and go and take a look at them?’ suggested Caldas, handing him the list. ‘I don’t like cars.’

Panxón looked quite different in the sun. There were more fishing rods at the end of the jetty than at other times, and more people on the beach, walking from one sea wall to the other along the water’s edge. Many tables on the terraces displayed
Reserved
signs.

Caldas passed several young men on the promenade, some on foot, others on bicycles, alone or in pairs. He could tell nothing from their faces, but he wasn’t really expecting to see anything there. He’d looked into the eyes of killers many times and knew that they looked just like anyone else. Murder was human. Anyone could kill.

He took off his sweater, rolled up his shirtsleeves and made his way to the narrow street where José Arias lived. Judging by the amount of junk mail in the letterbox, he hadn’t returned, but Caldas rang the bell anyway.